In a moment of Kickstarted exuberance, cartoonist Ryan North made a promise to explode. Makers Derek Quenneville and Lauren Archer made the explosion happen.
The uncut version of the video goes like this: We're in an alley. A man in black places a blue plastic head on the ground among the snow before putting on safety goggles. "Safety third!" someone shouts. A woman in a hoodie runs up to the head, pours liquid into the hole on top and then screws on a purple cap before running away. Smoke begins pouring out around the cap, which is a problem. She scurries back in, secures the cap completely and then hurries out of frame.
And then nothing.
For seven minutes, the head just sits there. Occasionally, ominous cracking sounds occur, but not much else. People begin to worry that it isn't working. There's some discussion about whether someone should approach the head or not. "We've made a bomb we can't turn off," a man says. "With a fuse of unknown length," adds a woman. We continue to wait.
"I think your forehead's getting bigger," someone else says.
BOOM. The head explodes. Everyone cheers.
It began as a joke.
Ryan North is a cartoonist. He writes Dinosaur Comics, a daily comic where the pictures never change. It's 10 years old. North was running a Kickstarter for a book he'd written, a chooseable-path adventure book based on Hamlet. (A what? North explains: "'Chooseable-path' you may recognize as a trademark-skirting version of a phrase and book series you remember from childhood. Remember? Books in which... an adventure is chosen??")
The base goal was for $20,000 to get the book printed, but as is increasingly common, North included stretch goals to help the project along. At $30,000 he'd hire nine artists to illustrate some of the deaths that occur in a few endings, and give everyone who backed the project an e-book. At $50,000 there would be an illustration for all 110 deaths. At $90,000 a whole new book based on the life of poor Yorick. As the number climbed, the rewards got bigger and weirder. There were new e-books and plush skulls and a stage performance where the internet votes on what happens next. At $225,000, North promised to send a total of 225 free books to schools and libraries. "Also I will... create a pizza that looks like Hamlet and... eat it?"
The $500,000 unlock said simply this: "I will literally explode (literally)"
The Kickstarter closed out at $580,905.
"Honestly when I made the promise, breaking $500,000 seemed really unlikely so I was willing to play fast and loose with what I would have to deliver," says North, "Saying 'I will literally explode' seemed like a fun way to end the paragraph, you know?"
Derek Quenneville and Lauren Archer are makers. They're both members of the Site 3 coLaboratory, a maker space in Toronto. Quenneville is a 3-D printing evangelist and digital fabrication artist who devotes a lot of his time to helping others learn to use these new tools. Archer is a heritage planner, high-energy craftsperson, and member of the Site 3 board. Quenneville is the man in the video; Archer, the woman.
Quenneville heard North talking about his 'literally explode' problem on the radio. "Since Site 3 has some experience with such things, I sent him an e-mail inviting him to be 3-D printed and exploded."
"It was basically like the Bat signal," says North, "I expressed my need publicly, and the next thing I know Derek and the rest of Site 3 are swooping in saying 'Have no fear, citizen! How much fire do you want in the explosion?'"
Site 3 is located in a two-story building in a back alley in Toronto. It was opened in 2010, by a group of makers who'd been involved in other hacker spaces but needed a place where they could generate sawdust and run power tools without messing up someone's computer.
Today, the site offers a rotating series of workshops, as well as a weekly open house night. There are industrial sewing machines, a laser cutter, 3-D printers, and a variety of soldering, wood- and metal-working tools. "Site 3 is an awesome enabler," says Archer. "Anything you've ever wanted to make or do, but didn't have the space or tools or the expertise or the confidence to try, you can probably do at Site 3."
"It's a very welcoming, friendly space," says Quenneville.
Site 3 is best known for being the home of a series of pyrotechnic projects like Super Street Fire, where two contestants battle it out by controlling real flames with their minds. "We're more about fire specifically than explosions, as we have a number of certified flame effects people, fire arts performers, and the like," says Quenneville.
Fire is a theme that runs through Site 3's workshop space. The bathroom even features a fire toilet, thanks to a lack of plumbing.
Yet despite all that, the answer to North's problem turned out to involve no fire at all. "Lauren suggested that an embedded bottle of dry ice would be the safest way to go," says Quenneville.
How often does Archer blow things up? "Not often enough! Or just often enough. It's hard to tell," she says, "I blew up a cake for my boyfriend's birthday, and wasn't really planning any more explosions any time soon. But when opportunity knocks!"
The plan was simple: Scan North's head using a Microsoft Kinect and ReconstructMe to generate a 3-D model. Print that 3-D model in 14 parts so there would be natural seams, and assemble it around a plastic bottle. Fill the plastic bottle with dry ice and then add some water to speed up the reaction. Seal the lid and run away.
Archer says the project took only three or four days of planning. "I like the challenge and gratification of thinking up and implementing an idea really rapidly," she says. "It limits you to what you can find and to using the resources of the community around you."
The actual printing was performed on a modified MakerBot Cupcake printer, and took 35 hours.
The process of preparing the explosion was documented on the book's Kickstarter page, and North's head is available for download. North says excitement about the explosion from his fans has been high. "Some of them have forgotten there's a book to go with it."
If you are one of those fans, this is for you.
